By Wisdom Patrick (Lagos)
Paul Mumeh and
Chesa Chesa (Abuja)

It galvanised the police into action to arrest the criminals and has put the PDP on the alert, with reports that the gang acted desperately to achieve its objective of raising the number of political assassinations.

A top PDP member said the killers first went to the house of a yet to be identified man whom they mistook for Ozioko and killed him.

When they realised that he was not the target, they combed the area for the house of Ozioko and pumped bullets into his body.

Officers at the Gwagwa police station are out to arrest the assassins. The corpse has been deposited at the National Hospital mortuary, Abuja.

PDP National Publicity Secretary, John Odey, confirmed the incident.

As the news broke on Wednesday, the government denied the report released by Human Rights Watch that torture is a common practice by the security agencies.

Information and National Orientation Minister, Frank Nweke, told journalists in Abuja that the report has no iota of truth.

The government wants “to say without fear of contraction that torture is not routinely practised in Nigeria”, he declared, and noted that the document did not give detailed accounts of the persons claimed to have been brutalised by the police.

He added: “President Olusegun Obasanjo has demonstrated times without number that he is committed to the enthronement of rights and respect for the rule of law.

“It is known that the practice in Nigeria is that reported cases of abuse or abuses by any law enforcement agent or agencies is fully investigated and culprits brought to book.

“It is important to state that … Obasanjo is very much aware of the problems within the criminal justice administration in the country, including the police.

“Not only has the government included police reform in the on-going internationally-acclaimed reform agenda but the entire administration of justice is also undergoing far-reaching reform.

“Human Rights Watch ought to realise that for a country that had undergone military dictatorship for so long the task of repositioning an institution like the police is not only daunting but must be done thoroughly.

“Not only has the number of police officers been doubled since 1999, but the administration has also invested very heavily in training, equipment, monitoring and the introduction of police community relations”.

Nweke disclosed that police reform includes community policing, the pilot scheme of which is already going on in Enugu State.

“The government has through its many institutions continued to empower the populace to know and insist on their rights and expects them to also support the on-going efforts”.

Ighodalo, stating the reaction of the police, stressed that it is “very unfortunate” if Human Rights Watch wants to write the United States and Britain to stop further assistance to the police.

“It is not the police tradition or convention to torture suspects”, he said, and that the police leadership has been championing the cause of identifying over zealous officers and dealing with them.

Regardless, Human Rights Watch accused Obasanjo of not being serious about pursuing justice.

Its officials, Sonya Maldar and Lance Latting, told a press conference in Lagos on Wednesday that the President has allowed the police to get away with a series of human rights violations in the last five years, including murder and brutality.

They said: “If Obasanjo wants to show the world that he is serious about pursuing justice, he should ensure that police torturers are held accountable for their crimes”.

Maldar, who studied human rights abuses in prisons and police cell across the country, said she interviewed 50 inmates, all of them awaiting trial, and documented the findings in a 76-page report, titled “Rest in Pieces”.

She stressed that most of the victims were arrested within the context of an aggressive government campaign against common crime and tortured to obtain confessions.

“They were tortured in local and state police stations across Nigeria, often in interrogation rooms, specially equipped for the purpose”, she insisted.

Maldar said the forms of torture include the tying of arms and legs behind the body, suspension by hands and legs from the ceiling, severe beatings with metal or wooden objects, spraying of tear gas, shooting in the foot or leg, raping female detainees and using pliers or electric shocks on the penis.

“In addition, witnesses reported that dozens of suspects died as a result of their injuries; others were summarily executed in police custody”.

According to her, an inmate narrated that “a policeman handcuffed me and tied me with my hands behind my knees, a wooden rod behind my knees, and hung me from hooks on the wall, like goal posts.

“Then they started beating me. They got a broomstick hair (bristle) and inserted it into my penis until there was blood coming out. They put tear gas powder on a cloth and tied it round my eyes. They said they were going to shoot me unless I admitted I was the robber. This went on for hours”.

The man, aged 23, was arrested in Enugu in June 2004.

Maldar stressed that the majority of the torture victims interviewed were ordinary criminals whose cases were characterised by an absence of the due process of law.